Many Israeli-Palestinian issues in Israel's comptroller's report
Palestine-Israel, Local, 5/11/1998

Like in previous years, the latest state comptroller report in Israel stunned many in Israel with revelations of bad conduct and clandestine extortion by senior officials in the government.

It unveiled how influential the extreme ultra orthodox parties are in Israel and how the government, unlike in the past, has allocated huge amounts of money for those parties in order to maintain its survival.

The publication of state comptroller Miriam Ben Porat's report came only a few days after the controversy that hovered over Israel's 50th anniversary celebrations when a famous dancing troupe canceled its participation in the major event over interference by ultra religious groups that protested their show. The show included scenes of troupe members taking off part of their clothes and remaining with their ballet outfit-like clothes. The cancellation of the show caused an uproar in Israel where the secular majority felt the power of the religious camp was going far beyond the limit of the 50-year-old status quo that reigned the country ever since it was proclaimed in 1948.

Friction between religious and secular Jews is as old as the country is. Yet, in the past two decades, power of the religious parties has been mounting due to the shift to the right that started back in 1977 with the election for the first time in Israel's history of a right wing government under former prime minister Menachem Begin. Since then, ultra orthodox parties have been gaining additional influence from their own unique status in the Knesset, Israel's parliament.

The fact that the Israeli public was divided almost in two halves between right and left has given more power to the ultra orthodox parties. The two leading Labor and Likud parties enjoy equal parliamentary power and only the party that succeeds to bring the religious parties closer to its side can form a government and safeguard its continued tenure of four years. This is exactly today's case with the Likud government as well as with all previous Likud governments in the past two decades. When the Labor Party regained power in the 1992 elections, it tried, under the former premiership of Yitzhak Rabin, to fight the influence of ultra orthodox parties and forged a coalition along with the left wing Meretz Party and with the tacit support of the Arab parties. But Rabin's assassination and the subsequent loss of the elections in 1996 by the Labor have brought the Likud back to power. The Likud's return pushed new life in the influence of the ultra orthodox parties.

A poll conducted by the Tel Aviv University last week showed that some 80 percent of the Israeli public believe that violent clashes seem to be inevitable between religious and secular sectors of the Israeli public. The poll results shows the conflict between religious and secular Jews, which has in fact existed for so many years but efforts were always made to avoid admitting its existence. For many secular Jews, those ultra orthodox or religious Jews receive governmental preferential treatment though they do not serve in the Israeli army and ridicule many of the country's ideals. Deputy mayor of West Jerusalem Haim Miller, for instance, once said that Israel's flag is "no more than a ragged piece of cloth." Miller is a member of one of the ultra orthodox parties and enjoys the support of most of the religious Jews living in the city, mainly in the Mea Shearim quarter in West Jerusalem.

Many in Israel have so far failed to answer the question of whether they regard themselves Jews or Israelis. The public has been divided between two segments. One believes Israel should remain a Jewish country, even if this identity contradicts with democracy. The other believes Israel should maintain its democratic nature even at the expense of its Jewish identity. In the same poll conducted by Tel Aviv University, this question was put forward: "Were you to choose between a democratic state that has less to do with the Jewish identity or a Jewish state that does not necessarily respect democracy, which one would you choose? Among those who answered, 61 percent said they would choose the democratic state while 29 percent opted for the Jewish system. But when the respondents were divided between Netanyahu and former Labor Party leader Shimon Peres' voters, the result was more interesting. Out of those who elected Netanyahu there were 49 percent who supported the Jewish nature of the country while in Peres' case, those who opted for democracy were 79 percent and only 12 percent said they preferred a Jewish country.

On the following day after the 50th anniversary celebrations, left wing artists and actors demonstrated in Tel Aviv to protest the cancellation of the troupe's show the night before. They clashed with the police and shouted slogans branding Israel a dictatorship and a police state. Some even said Israel was becoming a new Iran in the Middle East. They were referring to a statement by assassinated prime minister Yitzhak Rabin who once named some of those leaders of the ultra orthodox community as Ayatollahs.

The state comptroller's report dealt also with issues relevant to the Palestinian question and revealed that Israel's closure policy and the siege it clamps on the Palestinian government areas have proved to be fruitless and toothless. The report said that thousands of Palestinians make their way daily into Israel without going through the army checkpoints that are scattered all over the roads connecting the West Bank with Israel. Meters away from many of those roadblocks, the report said, Palestinians walk on foot on dusty roads and sneak through the borders without being checked. In a few minutes, they disappear inside urban areas and cities.

Borders: Closing the borders between Israel and the Occupied Territories is a measure as old as the Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip is. Israel has always used security considerations as a pretext for clamping siege on the Palestinian territories. For the Palestinians, this closure never was security-related. They considered the closures as one form of collective punishments that Israel has been using against them. The inefficient appropriation of the closure policy results, as unveiled in the state comptroller's report, has proved that the Palestinians were right. Israel was wrong. Thousands of Palestinians have succeeded in entering Israel without being checked by the Israeli soldiers or police.

There are some 340 kilometers of borders between the West Bank and Israel. Along some of those kilometers, Israel built electronic fences but most of the borderline is vulnerable to infiltrators. Where Israeli military checkpoints are set, Palestinians wait in queues, sometimes for more than 20 minutes or even half an hour to get through. Occasionally, soldiers manning the checkpoints choose not to check any of the identity cards and people flow through freely. The report said that among those Palestinians who infiltrated into Israel were the suicide bombers who hit Israel with a series of attacks and bus bombings in the years 1995 and 1996. The report said the vulnerable borders Israel has with the West Bank have contributed to increasing Israel's problems not only in the field of security but also in businesses and daily public life. Car thefts, drug trafficking, burglaries, arms smuggling and expired food trading between Israel and the West Bank are part of the problems that Israel and Palestine have to tackle. But Palestinians charge Israel with turning a blind eye to steps taken by Israeli merchants who drown the Palestinian market with expired foods and products. Palestinian food control authorities have been busy chasing Palestinian partners to their Israeli counterparts. The Palestinians last year confiscated tons of food, including flour and tainted products. They also spotted a number of stole cars hideouts used by Palestinians to store vehicles they steal from Israel.

In many cases, Israeli car owners are involved in their car thefts. They cut a deal with a Palestinian to steal their car, in return for a relatively low amount of money. They later inform the police and get compensated by their insurance. Israeli police sources admit that the phenomenon exists and said the police are taking every measure possible to combat car thefts. According to Israeli statistics, losses from car thefts amount to US $ 300 million. Israel claims most of those cars stolen find their way to the Palestinian areas. But there are also places in Israel itself where stolen cars are taken and broken into pieces to be sold later as spare parts.

The comptroller's report dealt also with the question of by-pass roads that Israel opened in most of the West Bank to give way to Jewish settlers to travel around without having to cross heavily-populated Palestinian areas. It said that in many areas of the West Bank, the Israel army failed to open those roads and left the matter for the Jewish settlers to do it. The settlers, the report said, did not go by the plans presented by the Israeli military government and took over additional Arab lands that were not included in the original plans. The report noted that many of those roads were built without any attention given to the safety element making them hazardous to travel on.

Since those roads were built, Jewish settlers and Palestinians have been using them. For the settlers, they provided a safe road away from Palestinian stone throwing and Molotov cocktail attacks. For the Palestinians, those roads were a way to escape traffic congestion in the Palestinian cities.

Previous Stories:
  Rajoub: Settlers who attack Palestinian areas won't get out alive   (3/16/1998)
  Defacing Yitzhak Rabin's statue   (2/7/1998)
  Israel's bids to convert religion of Palestinian children condemned   (1/26/1998)

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